Krishana once approached Yudhisthira and said, "King
Jarasandha is a very cruel king. He has received many boons from Shiva. He
has defeated many kings and imprisoned them. He wants to imprison more
kings so that when the number reaches one hundred and one he can
sacrifice them to Rudra (a form of Shiva). We need to kill Jarasandha
because sooner or later he will attack us. But he can only be killed by
tearing his body into two parts." Yudhisthira asked Krishna,
"Why can he be killed only in that way?" Krishna replied,
"There is a story behind his birth. His father King Brihadratha
had two queens, but was childless. He requested a sage to bless him with
a child. The sage gave him a mango for one of his wives. But by mistake
Brihadratha's wives ate one half of the mango each and gave birth to two
half-babies. These half-babies were joined to form one baby who was named
Jarasandha I will take Arjuna and Bhima with me to kill him." Krishna, Arjuna, and Bhima went to Jarasandha's palace and Bhima challenged
Jarasandha to a wrestling fight. They fought for thirteen days. On the
fourteenth day, Krishna encouraged Bhima to tear Jarasandha's body apart.
He demonstrated it by tearing a leaf in front of him. Bhima tore
Jarasandha into two parts but both the parts moved towards each other and
joined again. Jarasandha got up again to fight. This time Krishna asked
him to throw the two parts of his body in opposite directions. Bhima again
tore Jarasandha's body and this time threw the two parts in opposite
directions so that they could not meet.